Friday, December 21, 2012

It's 1:39am...and I'm wide awake with a mind full of spinning thoughts. Maybe this is my wake-up call.
My life is full of changes and never has that been more true than this year.
More than ever I find myself at a crossroads...waiting...waiting to make a decision, sometimes waiting for someone to make a decision.
Not all the decision/choices feel like they are mine to make.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Once you turned the corner there was a fork in the road.
The right side was wide and smooth and obviously well walked.
The left though, was narrow and crooked with sharp rocks that could cut your feet.
A well worn bench sat between the two paths. It too, was worn. The paint long worn away and wood smoothed down.
Perhaps some took time to decide which path to take and needed to rest their weary legs.
Or perhaps, the bench was simply just there...for no reason at all.

It mattered not. For I never rested at that bench you see. I simply steered towards the left and kept on going.
Oh, I knew it was the harder path. The darker path, to be sure. But I'd never learn anything on that easy path.
I knew there would be heartbreak, tears, loss and that perhaps it might break me.

But I'd never know myself if I chose any other way, you see.
And if I never found myself, how were you going to find me as well?

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

It's been awhile since my last post. Thanksgiving is over and now Christmas is around the corner.

As every year for the last twenty, I struggle between loving this time of year and mourning this time of year.

Growing up, my family thanksgivings were quiet. Just my mother, father, brother and me. We never had extended family over for holidays. They all live(d) on the east coast and my father hated traveling during the holidays.

We'd eat ourselves to death and lay around the house. Then on Friday we'd drive down to Carmel-by-the-Sea and do some Christmas shopping. I'd follow my father around in and out of art galleries. Usually he'd see something that would speak to him and buy it. My father has a wonderful collection to this day.

On Saturday we'd drive up the hill and chop down a tree. Our living room had very high ceilings and the tree usually topped out at about 20 feet. We'd manage to get the tree home and soak it in a bucket of water overnight an hope all the little bugs would crawl off overnight. Most of them did.

Then on Sunday, we(my father, brother and myself) would struggle to get that damn tree in the house and standing up. Most years it didn't fall over. Eventually we learned to tie it off with fishing line half way up to keep it standing.

My brother and I would use the rest of the afternoon to decorate the tree.

That was our family tradition until the year our father collapsed at the thanksgiving dinner table 20 years ago. Later that weekend the doctors told us he had an inoperable brain tumour that would kill him in less than four months.
The holidays have never been the same for me, and probably never will. Yes, I mourn him. However, I wish my girls could have known him. I wish he could have been a grandfather.

I've passed many of those family traditions on to my own family. I'm blessed for every year we're able to do them.
I've changed a few here and there. I'm not a turkey girl...we have prime rib for Christmas dinner. Hmmm. Our tree has never been taller than 9 feet...and I only remember the kitten knocking over the tree once.